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Monday, February 25, 2008

CANADA'S PRIME MINISTER HARPER ON ISRAEL

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL

The headline here seems fairly misrepresentative.

Harper's statement on two states was tepid and no more than we might hear from Olmert himself. You might well call it dishonest.

The key elements are what you mean by "democratic" and "peaceful." Hamas won an honest and open election but has been utterly rejected, by Harper and others, inducing chaos into Palestinian affairs, the very thing Israel intended when it secretly subsidized Hamas years ago to oppose Fatah.

The most important thing Harper said was the business about unqualified support for Israel. This is not the typical Canadian view. Israel has done many savage and disgraceful things most Canadians cannot accept or support. Most of all, Israel has run what effectively is a fenced-in Bantustan for forty years. Some democracy.

Please remember, democratic values are not just about holding elections now and then, especially so in a place where citizenship largely depends on religious identity. Otherwise South Africa would have deserved our support. So would the former American Confederacy. So would Northern Ireland when it repressed Catholics.

Democratic values must reflect respect for human rights, something about which Israel has been blind. There are no rights at all for Palestinians.

Harper's dichotomy between democracy and terror is false, much like Bush's garbage about with us or against us. Israel is not a true democracy, and Hizbollah is not by any meaningful definition a terrorist organization, despite American influence having got it designated so. They are freedom fighters as surely as the African National Congress was.